Roger Teglia: Those Were the Days Dayton, Nevada, Nevada Fish and Game Affairs, Agricultural Business, Nevada Politics Interviewee: Roger Teglia Interviewed: 1967 Published: 1995 Interviewer: Mary Ellen Glass UNOHP Catalog #059 Description Roger Teglia is a native of Nevada, born in Dayton in 1902. His father and mother, Italian immigrants, worked on farms in the Dayton area, fi nally acquiring land of their own. Here, Roger Teglia grew to young manhood, learning to love the out of doors and to form some opinions on the conservation of native species. Th is interest grew until he found himself deeply involved in Nevada state and local fi sh and game aff airs and organizer of a group of sportsmen devoted to carrying out the goals of conserving game and making hunting and fi shing more rewarding. As a profession, Roger Teglia chose agricultural business. Aft er moving to Sparks, Nevada, and seeing the family business destroyed by a railroad strike, he organized the Farmers Exchange, a cooperative. He managed the business for several years until government service caused him to abandon it for a similar enterprise. A narration on the War Food Administration covers this period. Mr. Teglia continued to be one of the leading spokesmen for the conservationist point of view throughout his other careers. Recognized as a responsible citizen, he also served on the Regional Planning Commission and the Urban Renewal Agency. His devotion to the out of doors led him to promote a number of parks and recreation areas in the Reno-Sparks area, including Virginia Lake and Paradise Parks. As a sideline, and stemming from his other interests, Mr. Teglia involved himself in state and local politics to the extent that he was oft en a participant in high level decisions and campaigns during the era of Charles Russell and George W. “Molly” Malone. Th e account of these activities will prove exceedingly interesting to future scholars. Roger Teglia: Those Were the Days Roger Teglia: Those Were the Days Dayton, Nevada, Nevada Fish and Game Affairs, Agricultural Business, Nevada Politics An Oral History Conducted by Mary Ellen Glass University of Nevada Oral History Program Copyright 1995 University of Nevada Oral History Program Mail Stop 0324 Reno, Nevada 89557 [email protected] http://www.unr.edu/oralhistory All rights reserved. Published 1995. Printed in the United States of America Publication Staff : Director: R.T. King University of Nevada Oral History Program Use Policy All UNOHP interviews are copyrighted materials. Th ey may be downloaded and/or printed for personal reference and educational use, but not republished or sold. Under “fair use” standards, excerpts of up to 1000 words may be quoted for publication without UNOHP permission as long as the use is non-commercial and materials are properly cited. Th e citation should include the title of the work, the name of the person or people interviewed, the date of publication or production, and the fact that the work was published or produced by the University of Nevada Oral History Program (and collaborating institutions, when applicable). Requests for permission to quote for other publication, or to use any photos found within the transcripts, should be addressed to the UNOHP, Mail Stop 0324, University of Nevada, Reno, Reno, NV 89557-0324. Original recordings of most UNOHP interviews are available for research purposes upon request. Contents Preface to the Digital Edition ix Introduction xi I. Early Days in Dayton, Nevada 1 2. My Work in Agricultural Business 15 Swift and Company Th e Nevada Poultry Producers Th e Farmers Exchange War Food Administration 3. Nevada Fish and Game Aff airs 33 4. Reno and Sparks: Parks and Recreation 61 Virginia Lake Park Paradise Park 5. Reno Urban Renewal 69 6. Th e Regional Planning Commission 83 Lake Tahoe Planning Problems Other Problems in Planning viii Roger Teglia 7. My Political Activities 95 Personal Philosophy Original Index: For Reference Only 117 Preface to the Digital Edition Established in 1964, the University of While taking great pains not to alter Nevada Oral History Program (UNOHP) meaning in any way, the editor may have explores the remembered past through removed false starts, redundancies, and the rigorous oral history interviewing, creating a “uhs,” “ahs,” and other noises with which record for present and future researchers. Th e speech is oft en liberally sprinkled; compressed program’s collection of primary source oral some passages which, in unaltered form, histories is an important body of information misrepresent the chronicler’s meaning; and about significant events, people, places, relocated some material to place information and activities in twentieth and twenty-fi rst in its intended context. 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When human advise readers to keep in mind that these are speech is represented in print, stripped of remembered pasts, and we do not claim that these signals, the result can be a morass of the recollections are entirely free of error. seemingly tangled syntax and incomplete We can state, however, that the transcripts sentences—totally verbatim transcripts accurately refl ect the oral history recordings sometimes verge on incoherence. Th erefore, on which they were based. Accordingly, each this transcript has been lightly edited. transcript should be approached with the x Roger Teglia same prudence that the intelligent reader exercises when consulting government records, newspaper accounts, diaries, and other sources of historical information. All statements made here constitute the remembrance or opinions of the individuals who were interviewed, and not the opinions of the UNOHP. In order to standardize the design of all UNOHP transcripts for the online database, most have been reformatted, a process that was completed in 2012. Th is document may therefore diff er in appearance and pagination from earlier printed versions. Rather than compile entirely new indexes for each volume, the UNOHP has made each transcript fully searchable electronically. If a previous version of this volume existed, its original index has been appended to this document for reference only. A link to the entire catalog can be found online at http://oralhistory.unr.edu/. For more information on the UNOHP or any of its publications, please contact the University of Nevada Oral History Program at Mail Stop 0324, University of Nevada, Reno, NV, 89557-0324 or by calling 775/784-6932. Alicia Barber Director, UNOHP July 2012